Builder 3rd Class John Skoblicki, of East Rockaway, painted a work bench inside the Naval Air Facility Atsugi Public Works workshop in Japan.

“[He] is a motivated Seabee who gives his best in all endeavors,” said Sherword. “[He is] perpetually optimistic and energetic, and cheerfully attacks and completes all tasks.”

Skoblicki says that it is not the end product that he enjoys the most but the process of creating the product.

“For me it is relaxing,” he said. “If you know going into it that you are going to mess it up a little bit, and that your end product is probably going be at least a little bit different from what you originally planned one way or another, it is no big deal. Patience is probably the biggest thing, the most important thing when you are doing finish work like that.”

For Skoblicki, woodworking has become a surprising hobby and he stays late at work teaching himself how to create different products with the machines and tools.

“Everything is a learning experience, whether you learn the right way or the wrong way,” he said. “You learn what to do or what not to do. Just observe and try to pick up on the right things and try to learn from the wrong things, others mistakes and your own mistakes.”

Skoblicki’s work at NAF Atsugi has also extended pass the borders of the base as he and other Seabees assisted in re-building houses that had been destroyed by the March 2011 tsunami in the Fukushima prefecture, as well as a five week stint in Diego Garcia, an island in the British Indian Ocean Territory.

“The ocean everyday, the weather, fishing, I like being outside so Diego Garcia was awesome,” he said.

Skoblicki hopes that his next duty assignment will see him to a construction battalion in California, or a command in Europe.

“I want to travel,” explained Skoblicki. “I never traveled before the Navy.”